Brendan Rodgers Confident Liverpool Will Get Better With Time

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Brendan Rodgers commented on the Liverpool’s recent form and assured his side will get back to threatening ways of last season with time

Liverpool were synonymous with goals last season and so far the Merseyside club has endured a slow start to the league. The biggest margin they have won by is 3-0 and they also have an unconvincing 2-1 win over Ludogorets and a 1-0 loss to Aston Villa to show in the records.

Brendan Rodgers believes that the club will gradually come into form and the new players will take time in doing well and adjusting to the conditions and demands of the club.

He said, in his pre-match conference, “There’s lots of “experts” in the game now, in the papers, on the telly, I’m always getting told what I should do! We’ll always look for different ways to win games. There’s no magic formula, just constant work on the training field. A year ago I was being asked, ‘Are we going to score goals?’ and of course we ended up with 101 goals last season. It’s naturally going to take time for the new players to play cohesively. We’ve had to bring in a lot of new players because of the demands of the Champions League so that naturally takes time and we’ve got players adapting to a new country. I’ve been really pleased with how they’re settling though.”

Liverpool take on West Ham on Saturday and Rodgers praised the opposition along with hailing former Liverpool player Stewart Downing.

“West Ham played very well against Hull. They showed great resilience. Sam Allardyce’s teams are always well set up. It’ll be a test. I thought Stewart Downing was the best player on the pitch the other night. A former player of ours, of course,” he said

“We know West Ham will be a threat, but we’ll look to take our game there, work hard and get the three points. We will attack and defender as a team, and win and lose as a team. We had to invest in the summer because we were so light. Our form last year was incredible, but we weren’t playing like that this time last year. It’ll take time to settle.”

Rodgers acknowledged his team’s lack of creativity in the final third against Aston Villa and said that his team will continue to work hard. He also praised the support on Liverpool’s return to Champions League, the clubs new Spanish full-backs as well as Mario Balotelli.

“Last week against Aston Villa we weren’t to our level in the final third. Villa defended well and got a result, but we moved on. With days to reflect, beating Ludogorets was a very good result. Maybe people thought we’d win more comfortably”, he said

“Southampton’s good form has shown how well we did to beat them last month. We were outstanding against Tottenham. The international break was poor as we lost some of our players and that upset our rhythm. We’ll continue to work hard.

“The great support on Tuesday increases the intensity. We have to play until the final whistle and we proved that the other night.

“We changed the system three times against Ludogorets to get the result. Our two young full-backs got the assists, great mentality. Javier Manquillo is like a rash, he’s all over attackers. He’s hard to beat and gets forward well. He wants to create. Everyone can see Alberto Moreno’s ambition to get forward. Both full-backs are enjoying their football, settling really well.”

“I’m very pleased for Mario Balotelli. He was very good, good pressing, worked well and took his goal fantastically well.”